Joy Behar on Why She Left ‘The View’ in 2013: ‘Somebody Wanted Me Gone’

Comedian says she was the casualty of a political balancing act: “They got rid of a Republican so they wanted to get rid of a Democrat”

ABC

Joy Behar has been back on “The View” since 2015, but that doesn’t mean she’s completely buried all beef from her original run.

“Somebody wanted me gone,” the comedian told People magazine of her 2013 exodus. “It was not 100 percent my choice.”

“When they told me they weren’t renewing, I said, ‘Good, I’m out of here,’” she continued in the recent interview. “I didn’t like the way the show was going at that time.”

But, ah, who wanted you gone, Joy?

“The way I heard it, and I don’t know what’s true because you never know, they got rid of a Republican so they wanted to get rid of a Democrat,” she explained. “That’s not the first time I’ve been fired for my politics. So I wasn’t shocked at that analysis.”

For the casual fan, we’ll translate: “The View” fired the right-leaning Elisabeth Hasselbeck back then. Behar believes she was the victim of a political balancing act by producers.

While Behar didn’t name names, Bill Geddie and Barbara Walters were executive producers at the time. Walters has since left the table, though she still earns an executive producer credit. Geddie left in 2014. Bill Wolff then took over Geddie’s gig for one season; Candi Carter and Brian Teta have split the role from 2015 to the present.

So why did Behar come back? “To do politics,” she said. “They told me, ‘It’s going to be smart, and we’re going to pay you more money.”

Perhaps the decision wasn’t necessarily in that order. Read the full interview here.

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